In Her Eyes
by Urdaniel
Summary: Rated M for language and implied - no explicit - sexual activity. Chronicles Jack and Maya Shepard's relationship; begins almost immediately after ME2's conclusion and continues into ME3. Takes place in an alternate continuity from Things Worth Keeping.
1. Part 1: In Medias Res

**In Her Eyes**

A Mass Effect 2+ Alternate Continuity by Urdaniel

_Disclaimer: I lay no claim to ownership of and make no profit from, characters and settings owned by Bioware and EA. This is a work of fiction and I am just its writer.  
_

_Dedication: With many thanks and much fondness to all the inhabitants (old and new) of the Jack-related threads on the Bioware Social Network. I apologize for the long absence and assure any and all of you who are waiting for Things Worth Keeping that I am still writing that story. It's just that this one sprang up, nearly full-formed, and asked to be told. _

[2012.04.18]

**Part One: In Medias Res**

The firm push, almost a shove, on her hipbone woke Maya from her drunken slumber. That and the explosive expletive, accompanied by the sounds of frantic scrabbling on the floor, that came from the lips of her unexpected, but hardly unwelcome, bedmate.

"Where the FUCK is my gun?"

Maya's first instinct on waking had been to do the same thing: ask where her gun was (albeit more quietly) while searching for it in the piles of clothing that were undoubtedly scattered around her quarters on the Normandy in the wake of their impromptu party for two. But, unlike her companion, she hadn't been SO drunk that she didn't immediately remember the events of the previous night. As such, she stayed where she was, her only acknowledgment of the developing situation a turn onto her right side and propping her head on one bent arm, the better to look at the spectacle taking place across the mattress.

Jack knelt on the floor, throwing clothes about – with a touch of biotic augmentation no less, and uncaring of whose clothes they actually were – while searching for her weapon. She was naked, a fact Maya could not fail to notice but which she let pass unremarked, more out of self-preservation than anything else. Instead, she let the ex-convict's preoccupation work to her benefit, taking the opportunity to study Jack's lean, athletic form more closely than she ever had before. The previous evening didn't count – not quite drunk enough to forget the broad outlines, but more than drunk enough to miss the fine detail, and certainly more than drunk enough to really enjoy it. Maya could not, however, resist the urge to say something, for all that it might have led to bloody murder (her own) or at least a severe maiming.

"Don't think you're going to need it, Jack. Not unless you want to kill me, of course. And to be honest, I'd rather you didn't."

Jack waved a dismissing hand in Maya's direction, all the while not bothering to look up.

"Fuck off, Cassie. Just hate not knowing where my piece is. Once I find it though, you and me are going to have a talk."

"Just a talk?" Maya said, her tone playful despite her irritation at being called by her first name's diminutive. Anyone else would have gotten a punch to the gut at the least, maybe a high-caliber round to the face at most, but Jack? Different story.

Jack did look at her then, one corner of her mouth turning up in a sneer that did nothing to mar her looks. When she replied, her tone was cold.

"Don't push your luck, _Cassie_," she said, deliberately emphasizing the nickname. "Between you coming back from the dead, your little suicide mission, and last night, you're just about out."

Maya tried, not entirely successfully, to stop her brow from wrinkling at the repeated use of the nickname, and the grin that spread across Jack's face at the sight of it only deepened her irritation. Just then Jack's hand came up, holding the Carnifex that was her favored pistol and brandishing it in Maya's general direction. To Maya's private relief, Jack kept her finger well away from the trigger; the last thing she needed was a hole in the head.

Her quest completed, Jack stood up from the floor, not using either hand to steady herself but just rising from her kneeling position in one fluid motion. It was graceful and somehow feral at the same time, and Maya's breath hitched ever-so-slightly as she watched. Jack then ruined the illusion by unceremoniously throwing herself on the bed in an undignified sprawl and resting her back against the headboard, pointedly placing the Carnifex between them before crossing her arms behind her head. The weapon's barrel pointed toward their feet, but the grip was in a position far more convenient to Jack's hands than Maya's. It was a bit of theater that Maya understood but had no use for, and found too minor to make an issue of, especially where Jack was concerned.

So she ignored it and sat up in bed herself, leaning her own back against the headboard. The motion made the covers fall to her waist, and she tried – successfully this time – to suppress her instinct to pull them back up. Maya had never been a prude, but she had never managed to develop the breezy casualness that let Jack walk onto a ship full of strangers – Cerberus cell members at that – naked except for the lower half of a prison jumpsuit, all without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. Right now, however, Maya would rather be damned than give Jack the further satisfaction of seeing her any more uncomfortable than she had already revealed, soft spot for the ex-con or no.

They sat like that for a while, neither of them speaking. In the beginning, Jack had looked at her with an expression composed of equal parts anger, confusion, and almost- fear? Maya quickly discounted the last. Jack might have been afraid or anxious about some things – her trepidation about returning to Pragia came most readily to mind – but one thing she had never seemed to be scared of, let alone intimidated by, was Maya. But when Maya had locked stares, Jack had quickly turned away, finding something on the ceiling that seemed infinitely more interesting. After several minutes of stony, yet pregnant silence, Maya could take no more.

"Really nice talk we're having here, Jack. Glad we're having it. Should chat more often," she said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

"You always keep this thing open?" Jack said, inclining her chin to point at the skylight that dominated the ceiling above the bed.

"It doesn't have a switch," Maya replied, her irritation continuing to mount. "EDI probably slides an armor panel over it in combat."

"Watch the stars a lot? Didn't see them much on Purgatory. Too much time in solitary or cryo."

"Only when I'm awake and not busy. Which hasn't happened at all lately. Are we going to talk or not?"

"You going to stop staring at my tits?" Jack asked, finally turning back to look her in the eye. "Or the rest of me? Here, I'll make it easy for you," Jack went on, moving on the bed so that she faced Maya full-on and drawing one knee up to her chest, spreading her legs in the process. Not so much as to be utterly vulgar, but more than enough to ensure that nothing was hidden.

"Enjoying yourself?" Jack's smile was almost a leer. Maya actually felt herself blush, and she turned away. But not before taking a good, long look.

"Good. Now that you got it out of your system for a bit, we can talk. Don't want you too distracted." Jack moved back to rest against the headboard, slipping under the covers and pulling them up past her chest. She left the Carnifex where it was, though. Silence fell across the Loft once more, and this time Maya, still chagrined, didn't break it. Jack did.

"How did we end up like this, Cassie?" Jack's voice lacked the bite it had held earlier, and her use of the hated nickname was gentler, less goading.

"Well, we got drunk at Afterlife, then you jumped me in the elevator when we got back to the Normandy-" Maya began, her tone acerbic. She was still angry at being embarrassed; the only good thing about it was that it wasn't where anyone else other than Jack could see.

"Shit, knew that already. Wasn't _that_ drunk."

"Then you tell me, Jack," Maya said, throwing her hands into the air and letting them fall with a thump back onto the bedspread, narrowly missing the Carnifex in the process. "You were the one who said you weren't the girls' club type. And don't say I should have stopped you either. I'd have to be goddamned crazy to turn you down. Not after-" her voice faltered, and it was a long second before she found it. "Everything."

They both fell silent again. And once more, it was Jack who spoke first.

"Why?"

"What?" Maya replied, her brow wrinkling yet again, this time in puzzlement.

"Why did you take a shine to me?"

"I didn't take a 'shine' to you. This was, and is, all about the sex," Maya replied, though the first sentence was a lie and she didn't mean the second in the slightest. But even as she tried to hide behind flippancy, she admitted to herself that she wanted, maybe even needed, to let it all out, potential awkwardness notwithstanding. It was, after all, already more than awkward enough.

"Was it the ink?" Jack went on, as though Maya had said nothing. "Did you look at me and think 'Tats. Potty mouth. Walks around half-naked. Yeah, she's into freaky. Probably swings both ways. Should be easy to get into the sack.'"

"Yes," Maya replied, surprising herself with her candor and how quickly she had told the truth. "But-"

"But what?"

So Maya told her.

~ End Part 1 ~

* * *

_Author's Note (2012.04.19)_

_Welcome, and thank you for visiting; I hope you stay and enjoy yourselves. For those of you who have read Things Worth Keeping (hereinafter referred to as TWK and also readable here on FFN) and are waiting patiently for the next portion of Jack and Gabriel's story, I apologize. This isn't it. I do assure you, however, that it has NOT been dropped and that it is, in fact being written as you read this. It's just that I've reached a bit of a sticking point on Day 6 and need to work through it in order to continue._

_So why is this here? To put it simply, because it wanted to be told. I know that sounds both pompous and presumptuous, but that's essentially what happened. I'd batted around the idea of a Jack/FemShep story pretty much from the beginning of my work on TWK (soon after I posted Day 1 if memory serves), but never did more than write some notes. There were several reasons for this, maybe even some good ones. In no particular order (except for the first) here are the ones I remember:  
_

_1) I was already working on TWK and saw little point in splitting my time and effort to work on another story. I tend to write long passages (each day of TWK is a case in point), and knowing that TWK would be a fairly large project despite its limited scope, I was concerned about my ability to keep my focus and sustain my effort, especially since I didn't want either story to be essentially a copy of the other with only Shep's gender switched. In the end, it was outside factors that made me lose my focus and my drive to write, so perhaps I shouldn't have been so worried. C'est la vie._

_2) Jack is canonically not a "girls' club" sort of person. This is perhaps the weakest of the reasons for not proceeding, simply because fanfiction, by definition and by its very nature, is not canonical in the slightest._

_3) I wasn't certain of my ability to realistically portray a same-sex relationship, even taking into account the (slight) artistic license allowed when dealing with fictional characters. First off, I'm male. Second, I'm heterosexual. In the end, I just decided to try and write them as real people, which, I believe, is the most important thing. I hope for a modicum (no matter how small) of success in this regard. _

_In any event, while I was trying to write Day 6 of TWK (not easy after a long absence from the characters, the story, and writing itself), the prose for this story popped into my head and wouldn't leave. I wrote down the passages as they came up, intending to put them into the notes file and leave them there, but as more and more were placed into tangible form, the first few parts of the story ended up writing themselves. Which is why they're here._

_Some more things before I let you get on with it (unless of course, you just jumped to Part 2 after reading Part 1):  
_

_1) Maya is NOT Gabriel. More to the point, her character differs from Gabriel not simply because she needs to be different from a story standpoint, but because she was played differently when I went through ME and ME2. She hasn't made it through ME3 yet (Gabriel got that dubious honor; besides, I hate the ending), but she'll stay true to her earlier paths. Additionally, she's nowhere as nice as Gabriel is, a fact which will become clear as the story progresses. Note that she's not full-on Renegade; any more detail than that will be supplied in the story itself._

_2) Jack is not (quite) Jack. This alternate version of Jack is a little more centered, a little less damaged, but she's still essentially the same Jack. If it helps, think of this version as a little bit further along on the road which leads her to where she eventually ends up in ME3 (if you took Paragon choices in ME2) than the Jack who is in TWK. The gear she eventually ends up with is a little higher-tech as well (thanks to an idea generously supplied by an old denizen of the Social Network forums who I have unfortunately forgotten the forum handle for)._

_3) I will endeavor to avoid too much overlap between the two stories. This means that, apart from locations like the Normandy and major hubs like the Citadel and Omega, I will not be visiting the same places twice. This means no Pinnacle Station, no Intai'Sei (as much as I love that apartment), and no reuse of incidental characters. Even the roster of main supporting characters will likely be different in each story. Some may be dead, others away, yet others simply not on stage. I don't want to take the easy way out and just recycle my own stuff. I love the franchise and the characters too much and respect them too much (despite the slapdash treatment they get in ME3) to be lazy about it. Unfortunately, this means that I can't and won't churn out product just for the sake of posting it, which also means that my updates will be as pokey as they have ever been (although I hope they won't be as few and far between as they have been over the past year or two). Now whether what I DO post lives up to that lofty ambition is another matter entirely, one that is up to the readers to decide._

_4) The individual parts are significantly shorter than those in TWK. This is my attempt to keep the workload manageable, which hopefully means I can post more installments, more frequently. Whether this will work out is again another matter entirely._

_5) Finally, note that I will never portray sex explicitly. There will be coarse language (wouldn't be Jack without the occasional bit of profanity after all) and sex will be implied (and rather more often than will ever be the case in TWK), but it will never take place on-page and certainly not in the sort of detail that exists elsewhere. The reason for this is simple: I am absolute rubbish at writing that sort of thing, and I'd rather not be any more laughable than I already am._

_Once more I thank you for your time and your patience._


	2. Part 2: The Eyes of a Girl

**In Her Eyes**

A Mass Effect 2+ Alternate Continuity by Urdaniel

_Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of characters and settings owned by Bioware and EA, and make no profit from this work of fiction. I'm just a writer._

[2012.04.19]

**Part Two: The Eyes of a Girl**

It was certainly true that most people saw the ink first, Maya included. But that was mainly because her first glimpse of Jack had been from a window a couple of levels up and a couple of dozen meters away, her view further obscured by the remnant telltales of cryogenic thaw, not to the mention the YMIRs intent on rendering "Subject Zero" into pink mist. In truth, all Maya had really seen was a slight, though noticeably female, figure break out of her restraints, sheathe herself in a biotic aura brighter than any Maya had yet seen, then storm-punch mechs nearly four times her size into oblivion. It was a wonder she had noticed the tattoos at all.

What transpired next was a game of follow-the-trail-of-utter-destruction through the passageways and crawlspaces of Purgatory, broken up by savage running fights as prison guards, security bots, and escaping convicts got in their way. By the time Maya, Garrus, and Zaeed caught up to her – though not before Maya gave Warden Kuril a pair of well-deserved shotgun blasts to the head – Jack was already cleaning up the last of the guards by smashing them against the viewport that overlooked the Normandy's berth.

Even then, Maya had seen the ink first. Well, to be honest, Maya had also noted the expanse of bare flesh that was the canvas for that ink, but she put that down to the heightened emotional and physical responses that went with a good, hard fight. Besides, though she wasn't at all squeamish, Maya had never thought that blood, dirt, and grease looked all that attractive. On anyone. Except perhaps Jack.

Still, the ink dominated. Understandable, since the intricate patterns were impossible to miss and almost as difficult to ignore. Maya had seen tattoos before of course, even had a few herself, but hardly ever to the extent of those Jack possessed, and certainly not with the overall level of sheer artistry. They had struck Maya – in a sudden flash of insight – as some sort of warning sign, maybe even a banner declaring war on the universe. Jack certainly wore them – as well as her casual nudity – as though they were. Maya was no stranger to such displays – her time running with the Reds back on Earth had given her an intimate familiarity with the concept, and she herself knew how to use it to full effect.

But once that warning was noted – consciously or no – most people would then tend to let their attention slide on by, their attitude dismissive, possibly even derisive, none of them caring to look deeper than surface impressions. Too risky after all; better to let sleeping predators lie. Maya herself might have left things at that. Beyond her initial surge of attraction to this wild, dangerous creature, Maya knew that at the most stripped-down, impersonal, pragmatic level, the person in front of her was a weapon. One that you pointed in the enemy's general direction, unleashed, then stepped back to a safe distance and watched as it did its job.

So after Maya's finger caressed the trigger on her shotgun, blowing away the guard about to blindside the woman they had gone through so much trouble to find, the ex-convict spun toward the source of the shot, eyes searching for the new threat. And their eyes met.

It was a habit born of lessons hard-learned on the battlefields of Earth's urban sprawl and the variegated planets of the wider galaxy, but never had the old soldier's maxim served Maya so unexpectedly, so disarmingly, wrong. "When facing an opponent at close range, don't look at the hands, don't look at the weapon. Look at their eyes." Maya had. And found herself lost.

It wasn't even really the eyes, not at first, even though her attention was focused on those large, round, expressive orbs colored a dark honey or smoky amber. It was the expression in them. The vast majority of people, even Maya herself, would have quailed, even if only inwardly, at facing the gaping maw of an Eviscerator that still glowed from its most recent shot. But not Jack. Her eyes held only defiance, and a determination that she would do her utmost to wreak as much havoc as she could before she was put down. Maya had seen the expression countless times, ended it almost as often, worn it herself. But on Jack it seemed to rise to another level entirely.

Maybe it was what underlay that expression. For all the fire, there was a palpable sense of dispassionate calculation in that stare. Possibilities raised, weighed, discarded, all in the barest fractions of a second. Taking in the holographic armour wrapping Maya in a blazing nimbus of amber light, the Eviscerator cradled with deceptive nonchalance in her hands, then flickering right, then left, at the two heavily-armed and armoured figures flanking her, their own weapons raised, ready. Watching, waiting, for any opening, no matter how small, and once found, to be exploited ruthlessly, efficiently.

Maybe it was the history, heavily-implied if not outright proclaimed, by who Jack was, where she was, what she had done, as told in the dispassionate prose of the Illusive Man's dossier, and in the more honest narrative of Jack's tattoos and the scars those tattoos emphasized, complemented, but never obscured. Maya had experienced hardship, caused mayhem, saved life, taken it. But she had also been - albeit reluctantly - proclaimed a hero, been exalted, rewarded, adored, trusted, maybe even loved. Maya somehow knew, perhaps as one faintly-kindred soul to another, that Jack had rarely, if ever, been that lucky.

Respect, admiration, even sympathy, but never pity – somehow they all came together in that one instant to crystallize Maya's resolve, making her want, more than anything she had ever wanted before, to plumb the depths that lay hidden behind Jack's maddeningly hypnotic gaze. But that realization came later, in calmer moments. There and then it was those eyes. Never letting go. Not that Maya wanted them to; all she knew was that she wanted to drown in them.

Only faintly did she note the full lips pulling back into a feral snarl to expose surprisingly-even teeth, or the scar that split the upper lip, somehow failing to do more than add character to the lightly-freckled face. Though her brain said otherwise, her emotions had long since overruled it, and Maya had done what ultimately proved to be the smart thing to do. It had seemed reckless at the time, as the incredulous expression on Zaeed's face, captured in the logs of her armour's peripheral sensors, proclaimed. After all, they had just seen the extent of the damage Jack had inflicted on the structure and denizens of Purgatory during her rampage through the prison ship; no one present had any doubts that she might have killed them all – easily – given half a chance.

Maya let the Eviscerator's barrel drop and, with a not-strictly-necessary flourish, returned it to its clamp at the small of her back, popping open her helmet's faceplate when she was done.

Jack's eyes had widened then, in disbelief. Haltingly, and with a great deal of hostility, a conversation had begun. The rest, as the old cliché went, was history. And though Maya had berated herself on many a subsequent occasion for coming off as a lovestruck teenager, she had found little cause to regret the decision that had sprung from that impulse. She hoped that that would always be true.

* * *

"You're fucking kidding me," was the first thing Jack said, as Maya finished her explanation.

"No. Other things maybe, but not this. Never this. Cross my heart," Maya said, her right index finger tracing a cruciform shape over the ten-centimeter scar that ran in a ragged, puckered line between her breasts. She was sufficiently embarrassed by her confession that she couldn't look Jack in the eye. Never in a million years would she have laid her thoughts so bare, not even to friends as close as Garrus or Mordin. But Jack, as had been the case since that first fateful meeting on Purgatory, was different.

"Shit. Getting too heavy for me. Leaving," Jack said, shaking her head even as she suited actions to words by getting out of bed and pulling on the outfit she had adopted ever since Pragia: an ensemble of heavy boots, skintight jeans, a black tank top, and a tactical vest. She kept her back to Maya the whole time.

In silence, Maya watched her from the bed, feeling inexplicably sad and not a little bit frightened. While the previous night had been something she had only ever contemplated, let alone experienced, in her most fervent, fevered dreams, it had also marked a transition. They had crossed a line – perhaps more accurately, Maya had allowed them to cross that line – that had separated what had become an companionable, almost-friendship from something else, something neither of them was entirely familiar – or comfortable – with.

It wasn't the physicality, of course. Maya hadn't been a virgin in any sense of the word for nearly two decades, and Jack had, to hear her tell it, been through things and done things that made Maya's own experiences pale by comparison. It was what came into being when matters progressed beyond mere urges and became head-achingly complex as a result. Maya could already see the signs. And Jack's words as she finished dressing did nothing to allay her fears.

"Need some space. Time. To think," Jack said, as she picked up the Carnifex from the bed and locked it to her hip. She had turned on her visor; Maya disliked the damn thing with a passion – it hid Jack's eyes – and she saw it as yet more evidence of the wedge that seemed to be driving between them. Jack walked toward the door. Just before she left she paused, her back still toward the bed- and Maya.

"Maybe I'll be back. Maybe I won't. Either way, no visiting, no looking for me till I figure out which. We clear on this?"

"Crystal. But how-" Maya said, leaving the question unfinished and hating how plaintive her voice sounded.

"I'll let you know. Not _that_ cruel," Jack replied, and then she was gone.

~ End Part 2 ~

* * *

_Note: It goes without saying (though I'm saying it anyway) that the opening portion of this chapter is not a verbatim account of Maya's explanation to Jack. I took creative license and made it more literary than just a flat-out monologue (which would have been boring, imo). Regardless, the general tenor and emotion is the same; just think of it as what was going through Maya's head as she was talking to Jack. This means, of course, that she did hold some things back, especially the things that Maya considered irrelevant or too embarrassing to admit out loud._


End file.
